


hero ≠ heroism

by PerfectSilence (hitomishiga)



Series: Demon idol project [2]
Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Body Horror, Demon Hunters, Possible Character Death, aka Nico is in over her head but doesn't realise it yet, future nozoeli included free of charge. hopefully
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 05:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4991269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitomishiga/pseuds/PerfectSilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico's met all kinds of people but none like the demon hunter that saved her life that night. </p>
<p>She's determined to repay that favour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hero ≠ heroism

**Author's Note:**

> when the third years were first years, a lot of shit happened and this is one of the shits that happened. will I ever stop writing in present tense with arty titles??no.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico nearly dies, but she doesn't, fortunately.

"Sis…"

It's Cocoro. Nico freezes in position, coat still halfway on her shoulders, shoulders arched. She wasn't supposed to wake anyone up. She'd been so sure everyone was fast asleep before leaving.

"Y-yes?" She squeaks, trying her best not to look too suspicious even as she continues putting on the too-big coat. Cocoro gives her a bleary, tired stare.

"You'll come back soon, alright?" Cocoro asks, so small and fragile, and Nico's heart breaks. But she can't just turn around. Besides, there's no way Cocoro knows anything, right?

"Of course. Get back to bed, you little rascal."

"Ok, sis."

She shuts the door with such a gentle tenderness.

Outside, it's so cold that she doesn't feel it immediately, but when she does her nose goes so numb it burns. She's glad she wore her thicker gloves.

Fuzzy streetlights paint the pavement in sombre orange, leaving shadows to dance by as the infrequent car roars past, playing loud pop, and are gone. The air is so frigid her breath no doubt comes out in puffs like smoke. The stars are out, too, but Nico can't see them for all the lights on the street. Everyone is wearing thick coats – if they're even out at this time of night. Morning. Whatever.

All the humans may have been fast asleep, but the predators of the night – the demons. They are all wide awake and hunting. Nico is sure of it. And she's going to do something about it.

_Without_ anyone knowing.

It's kind of exhilarating, living this kind of double life. It's kind of like she's a movie heroine, and she's going to save all the citizens of this city from the evil demons, with no reward but the peace in her heart and maybe some cash, too. She's actually had this whole thing planned for months, maybe even years, but it wasn't until she started her first year at Otonokizaka that she really got serious about it.

Paranormal, the supernatural, all that kind of stuff have been part of her life since she was a girl. Dad used to have posters and taped recordings of the X-files that they'd watch on a regular basis. Mum didn't really approve of it that much. "It's all conspiracy theories and rubbish," she used to say. That's why Nico got into singing instead. Singing is a crowd-pleaser. It's inoffensive.

Someone shouts, and Nico freezes, for one selfish moment imagining that the shout was aimed at her or that perhaps she'd be recognised, that maybe there were demons who could sense intentions and were headed for her right now, knowing she was intending to kill them.

Or at least, she was just investigating for now. As of yet, she still hasn't found any concrete evidence of actual demon activity, but she's sure she's getting close.

Shoved in her pockets, a ripped out page from a newspaper. _Suicide rates on the rise?_ It says, _Read more on page 12._

That, combined with other evidence such as the weird weather patterns, the increased activity on _Paraforum; the forum for paranormal investigators_ , and the unidentified and ill-forgotten claw marks on her father's body all point to one simple conclusion.

And, once, Nico saw a real demon. When she was younger. Nobody believes her, her mother thought it was a dream and promptly forgot all about the experience, but Nico rarely forgets things like that. It was a mess of teeth and arms – or tentacles? – and it stood upright and split open to reveal its black insides.

Ok, maybe that was a dream. But Nico is positive it was a dream influenced by real life demonic activity.

Speaking of demonic activity…

Nico feels her heart hammer in her chest, and suddenly she's apprehensive. Was it right to do this? Was it right to sneak away from home without even a goodbye kiss for her family? The dead construction site loomed, leered. It cast its shadows inside, flickering even in the steady light from the street and the moon. She rubs her hands together, blows on them, in an attempt to remain nonchalant. It works.

She's the great Nico-Nico! She can handle a spooky old construction site. What's more important than her churning stomach is to find the source of the sudden influx of suicides around this place. It's been empty for years, an abandoned project for some reason or another. There was talk in the council of flattening it all and rebuilding but nothing has yet to be done. Hence, the half-finished skeleton right on the middle of the block, which filters the light in a way Nico wishes it wouldn't.

At least once a week for the past five weeks, someone has jumped, or fallen, from the top of this building. Nico sets her jaw, pulls her collar over her neck. She's going to find out why, and she's going to be a hero. That's right.

She is the good guy.

The shadowed corners of the skeletal remains of the once-building are so pitch dark that every time Nico passes through them she gets the chills. Something small scurries across her path. Rats, maybe. Nico falters for one long moment before continuing, finding the old staircase and beginning to climb. Just rats. Nothing to be scared of. Just rats.

At some point, the staircase goes from concrete to metal, like the builders simply left the scaffolding there halfway through finishing the staircase. At this point it also becomes colder – there's less wall here, and further on there's nothing but beams of metal. The chill passes through her very bones.

She's very high up, she realises. Very high. It's at least three stories high now. She's been climbing without thinking, almost as if something was pulling her along…

Suddenly, Nico's heart stops. Her breathing becomes laboured, her throat closed in. Panic. Every shadow closes in on her and it's very dark and cold and far away from home. She's going to die, she thinks. She's going to die. She's only fifteen and she's going to die and mama won't even know what happened. Panic settles in like fine grains of sand, clogging up every mechanism, slipping through her fingers.

Legs buckle. Metal creaks. Far off in the distance, a roll of low thunder. A drop of rain hits her square on the nose as she huddles close to herself, willing her legs to move no further. She feels it before she sees it.

Something like footfalls strides in a steady rhythm down the staircase from above. Confidently. The steps are hard and sharp – business shoes, then. The strangeness does nothing to soothe Nico's nerves. In fact, it only serves to usher in her certain death and demise.

There's an empty space where someone should say something. Nico whimpers louder than she expected. She looks up.

It's the thing which has haunted her nightmares.

Not exactly how she recalled it, but she is sure this thing is a demon. There's nothing else for it to be. It's so tall it blocks out the moon. Large marks like scars cover its face, exuding from eyes so dark they seem completely hollow. The thing stays silent and still long enough for Nico to notice, even through her fear-induced haze, the long black tongue slithering behind razor sharp teeth, the bloodstained suit, the right arm which was nothing more than a spiked whip.

_Terror_.

Never in her life has Nico felt more afraid. Never in her life can she really say she's looked death in the face – not until tonight. The demon bends down with a grin, and Nico can smell blood on its breath. The tongue slimes its way out of those inhuman jaws, feels its way through the air as if it were a separate entity. Nico presses back but she's already back into a corner. Her legs feel like jelly. Ner neck tenses in her efforts to draw back, away from this foul thing, away from that slimy black tongue which, upon closer inspection, is covered in tiny, needle-point hooks.

Nico swallows but her throat is so dry it hurts. She feels wet saliva on her jaw, and screws her eyes shut tight. Let it be quick, she prays. Let it be quick.

Death never comes. There's a shout – Nico is so focused on her dwindling mortality that she can't pay attention to the words – and the demon withdraws just enough for Nico to take a breath of fresh air.

It all goes by quick.

When you've come so close to dying, succumbing, and then suddenly that ending is closed off from you, it's difficult to believe you're still alive, or that this isn't just a wild dream, or something. Nico feels the same way. She's not sure where she is for a moment, or what time it is. And then, she hears an unholy cry of pain and jolts back to reality.

The newcomer stands just a few paces away, on the staircase. The demon is below, clutching its whip arm and howling with animalistic fury. It's like a painting, Nico thinks. A painting of an angel fighting the devil in the moonlit ruins of a construction site. They carry a sword, too, just like angels do. In the other hand, her saviour holds a gun.

The demon and the angel are fighting, now. Every attack is parried by the sword, and the demon desperately lunges for one last-ditch effort. There's a deafening crack.

It gasps, puts a hand to its chest, and falls limply off the staircase and down three or four flights of stairs to the bottom floor. The gun is smoking. It smells of something Nico imagines is brimstone.

"Are you alright?" The – woman, Nico realises – asks. She's tall and blonde. Foreign, perhaps. The accent is off. Nico realises she's staring blankly and scrambles to her feet before she needs to be helped up. Her voice still eludes her. She just nods.

The woman holsters her weapons and coughs. Nico feels terrible. There's a spatter of red-brown blood on the woman's face and her clothes. It looks like she's wearing a bulletproof vest, sort of.

"Is it dead?" Nico asks stupidly after what seems like years. All of a sudden her coat feels too warm and tight. "The demon, I mean." She adds in an attempt to sound intelligent and worthy.

The woman laughs, a little, but there's a flash of unrecognisable emotion across her face. Confusion, perhaps. It fills Nico with a little bit of pride. "It is my job," she says with the barest hint of a grin, and it is then that Nico realises she's a demon hunter, for certain. A spark of hope and fervour alights in her heart.

"W-wait," she calls, as the hunter turns to leave down the stairs, "are there others like you?"

The hunter stops, facing away from Nico and illuminated by streaks of moonlight, and for a moment she's scared she's said something wrong. But the silence is broken with a voice lined with venom and diamond hardness.

"More of us than you know," says the hunter, and Nico feels herself brimming with awe. "We've been keeping you safe for years."

For a fleeting moment, Nico feels almost selfishly special, and she wants to be a hero, just like that.

A demon hunter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ what are nicos siblings i forgot which ones which


End file.
